Silly question, but does your phone line work right now at all? What happens if you call the numbers listed on each of your units? Do you get through, is there a busy tone, does it just continue ringing, or does the line pick up with a handshake [modelm] tone?

Very weird -- I just forced another daily call, and now miraculously it worked and is currently loading data. I still think it's something weird on TiVo's end, because I haven't done anything in the interim.

For the third consecutive month I find myself out of program guide data. Daily calls and forced daily calls all result once again with Service Interrupted or Call Interrupted errors, sometimes after 15 minutes of Downloading Data. Nice to know TiVo still can't figure out and fix the problem. Or perhaps they truly don't care about S1's . . . .

This morning I had a message on my Phillips Series 1 asking me to have the box make a call since the guide hasn't been updated for 10 days. I was surprised about that.

I did find early in the week that my phone line was unplugged from the wall, but fixed that and proceeded assuming there was no need to check anything else. It was today's message that alerted me to a problem.

I proceeded to do a daily call and noticed that everything went smooth, but after many minutes it got interrupted during the data download. I then went to make a test call but that got hung in the Connecting phase. I then proceeded to change the dial up number, which requires a call to Tivo to download the numbers, and that also failed in the Connecting phase.

At this point I was not ruling out a problem with the modem itself.

Came back a few hours later, tried again to download the list of phone numbers after changing the area code, but no luck. Made a daily call and after many minutes apparently downloading came back with Service Unavailable or something close to that.

Then changed the area code again. Proceeded to make the call to download the list of numbers and that worked. So now I knew the modem was OK.

Then I changed the telephone number. Made the daily call and this time it worked. The download was time consuming but ended normally.

Could it be that something got fixed this afternoon in the Tivo servers as I was testing my box? I can't tell what got fixed, but all I know is that my Tivo box is in fine health and something outside the box was failing. Glad I didn't proceed to get a new box, as I almost did. Mine is 8 years old and still working.

When my Tivo (Philips Series 1) calls in, it just rings and rings and rings. When I tried dialing the number it was supposed to be calling Tivo Central answered right away. Now I am trying the Guided Setup, and still just rings, rings, and more rings.

During the "call", the S1 sits at "Connecting..." for 5 or so minutes. Ultimately, when it sits in this state for so long, it fails with "Service Unavailable".

This morning, this happened with five successive "force calls". The sixth time I forced the call, it downloaded and completed.

The other day, while it was stuck on "Connectiing..." and I knew it was going to fail, I picked up the phone and heard the TiVo modem trying to ping the service (heard that tell-tell modem "buzz" and bleep). Of course, that one failed with "Call Interrupted".

I'm with you, Racer. Extremely unhappy with this situation. Have been babysitting this machine since early December. (By the way, the Suggestion problem is a known issue that TiVo seems to be working on, with Beta software. See this thread: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=394935 )

I've owned this Tivo for eight years without any problems until this. I'm sad.

I know just how you feel. My Sony S1 has been one of the most reliable CE products I have ever owned. The only work ever done on it was a HDD upgrade to a much larger drive and that of course was purely optional. IMHO it has a better picture than my 540 series 2 but that's subjective I guess.

I'm sad, too. For the same reasons you both say. At least now TiVo is acknowledging the problem (see TiVoJerry's post above) and I'm feeling more hopeful that a fix will come our way in the near future.

I have been having the intermittent connection problems as other people have been describing. I would have to force the calls until one got through. I did not run out of guide data.

We just got a cable box so I had to rerun Guided Setup. Now I cannot get through the Setup. I have tried many many times. I would think even if it was only getting part of the data each time, it would have gotten it all by now.

I usually get through the Setup or test calls. On downloading the Program data I get the "Downloading Failed Call Interrupted" message most of the time. Sometimes I get the Service Unavailable message.

One of the tips Tivo gives is to try during non peak hours. I have done this too and it has not allowed me to complete the setup.

In case it matters, the cable box is a DTA that Comcast is giving out to WA residents.

The Tivo has also started having problems where it won't boot up. When I plug it in, nothing happens. This did not happen until I started trying to do the Guided Setup.

Until I saw this thread I thought maybe the modem was going bad.. but now it looks like many others also have this problem.

Again note.. I am on a standard phone line so this is not because of using VOIP.

If someone can tell me out to get out of Guided Setup then I could try to use some of the ideas that have been posted such as deleting the logs. I assume the reason I can't telnet in now is because I can't get out of Guided Setup.

If someone wants me to run tests, I am willing to do so. I have hacked Tivos before.

As mentioned previously, I have a S1 on dialup. I did not mention before that it is lifetime.

Why don't you try the trick where you look up your local dial in number on Tivo.com and then put the whole thing into the dialing prefix spot, i.e,. 1-415-555-1212. That forces it to dial the local known to be good number. Your phone will disregard the other digits it dials in this process. Might get you through guided setup at least.

Hey BrendaG4! Months ago when I ran out of program data because of the same connection errors you describe, I made the mistake of going into guided setup rather than continuing to try making daily calls. It was purgatory! After weeks of constant forced calls, one finally went through. I still don't know why. Unfortunately, I find myself once again without program data and forcing daily calls to no avail. I wish I could be more helpful and hopeful but it's been nothing but problems for three months with my S1.

Thanks for the glimmer of hope that if I keep trying maybe I can get out of Guided Setup.

Have you seen the tip about deleting the logs? I would try that but I guess you can't telnet in when you are stuck in Guided Setup. It won't connect when I try.

Before being stuck in Guided Setup, I also had problems getting the daily updates but in all but 1 case I was able to get through in a reasonable amount of tries. I was thinking the modem was going bad. If I had not seen the posts online I would have been trying to hook up an external modem.

I bet most people with Series 1s on dialup now think "Oh well I guess its a bad modem" and give up. Maybe there are more problems out there than Tivo is aware of because people are blaming their aging modem or aging Tivo.

For anyone with a turbonet card in an S1, engineering wants help getting a network fingerprint.

Using a Linux router or sniffer, wireshark (windows,linux) or tcpdump (linux), capture whole throughput to test failed calls and send me a PM so I can give you an email address to send the files to.

I have a laptop with wireshark and a hub that I can use to sniff the network to capture the data traffic to Tivo Inc. The only thing stopping me of getting it is 600 miles of concrete to get to my moms where the problem exists. It there anyone in the Dallas Area (like within a few hours) that has a S1 with a TurboNet card that is experiencing this Connection Interrupted or Service Unavailable problem that I can hook up my hub and laptop to so that we can send this data to Tivo Engineering.

We need to get this to Tivo Engineering or otherwise they are going to think there really aren't that many people having this problem.

that has a S1 with a TurboNet card that is experiencing this Connection Interrupted or Service Unavailable problem that I can hook up my hub and laptop to so that we can send this data to Tivo Engineering.

Maybe we can figure out who lives close to who, who is willing to work on this problem.

I am in Tacoma Washington.

I have a TurboNet and an S1 but right now I am stuck in Guided Setup so I cannot give Tivo the network info. And even if I was not stuck, I do not have broadband or Linux. I don't know how to do the tests.. not that I can't learn how.. but obviously speed is important here.

I PM'ed TivoJerry and he said that they do not have any tests right now that a dialup user could do. (Also he stated that the fix would be made available to dialup users when it is discovered... it is just the network test was easier to focus on.)

Does anyone know if the reason I cannot telnet in is because I am in Guided Setup? I would rather not have to pull the drive if I don't have to so that I can delete the log files.

I can verify that, after numerous failed calls, deleting all log files in /var/log resulted in a successful data download. I am using a Turbonet card.

I would like to help with sniffing network traffic during the call, but my current network setup makes that difficult. If I can find a hub lying around somewhere, I'll take a look with Wireshark.

I think cheap hubs are impossible to get now (the one I have is over 5 years old I am sure). A couple of years ago I we needed some Hubs/Switches at work so I got an Ethernet switch for our desktops and then got a Linksys Hub for the lab because on occasion I would need to be able to sniff the network.

Later when I tried to sniff the network with the hub I wasn't getting anything except what was coming to the machine that had the sniffer on it. It turned out even though it was advertised as a hub and was marked hub, it was a switch. I guess it was cheaper to just make one set of chips/board and sell one as a switch and the other a little cheaper as a hub even though they were identical.

Over this weekend I went looking for a hub at Fry's and they don't even sell them anymore, they are all switches (I ended up having to dig up everything in the house to find the old hub). It appears the only option now days is to find an old one or buy an expensive switch that has the management stuff to be able set certain ports to receive all data. Its interesting how sometimes everything getting so cheap could end up costing you more to get the low low-technology stuff (same deal for RS232 Serial Port modems I am sure a lot of you have found out).

Well, after letting my Sony "cool off" after the futile forced call marathon a few days ago, I checked to see if it had completed a call on its own.

Nope.

Then I forced 5 calls in a row before giving up. None of them made it past the dialing stage, just like the last time. I have not been able to get to connecting or downloading at all for several days now.

Then I tried changing the phone number once again as I had back in December, but this time to a different area code. The call went through perfectly and got me a list of numbers to choose from.

I made sure it is set up to dial correctly, with the 1 and the new area code.

Guess what? None of the freaking numbers will complete during the test call.

So WTH is different about a call to get a list of phone numbers and an actual call (or test call in this case)? Why is one type accepted and the other rejected?

I tried all the phone numbers listed on my Tivo multiple times. (Well not in the dialing prefix... but just dialing them regular.)

Is this good enough or do I still need to find what Tivo lists for my area?

I even tried the option that is for people from Sales and Marketing.. and got a Temporary authorization for an 800 number on the Tivo.. but this got Service Unavailable.

BrendaG4

What you are not getting here is that the number it calls during guided setup is different than your local dial-up number. You need to bypass this by putting a local number with the 1 and the area code and the number in the prefix area. That will force the Tivo to dial the local number. It will dial the guided setup number after the prefix -- but your call won't go to the normal guided setup number which isn't working. When all else fails, the best thing to try here is to read and follow the instructions. I know it's difficult to overcome the tendency to do what you think is correct. However, after your multiple failures and a boat anchored unit, you might just try what is being suggested.

We are using the phone number dial-in (not networking). Have tried at least 4 different numbers. On successive tries, the message alternates from "Service Unavailable" to "Downloading... then Failed: Call Interrupted"

It's definitely not the modem, because (after a half-dozen tries with the above alternating messages) the downloading does finally complete and the data gets loaded. I'm getting really sick of babysitting it, though!

Deb

The same thing is happening to my philips. When I call Tivo and report all the error messages they said it had to be my phone line not allowing dowloads. I explained to her that there is no problem with the phone (I had called the phone co) and its the Tivo. She said she didn't know what to tell me. Well thanks for being so helpful! They don't support series 1 anymore yet I paid for LIFETIME service. I have to manually force a call through at least 8-10 times before it takes. There is no reason for it and Tivo doesn't want to hear it.

So I keep changing the number, going through guided setup as a last resort, forcing calls through and basically acting as my own Tivo support. I am ready just to suck it up and use my tv's dvr.

I wish Tivo would help us out . Either that or offer us upgrades at a very MINIMAL cost just for the box itself, not the service since we all paid for that already.

I wish Tivo would help us out . Either that or offer us upgrades at a very MINIMAL cost just for the box itself, not the service since we all paid for that already.

At this point I would even accept a transfer of my lifetime svc to a new series 3 box of my choosing. At least then I wouldn't have to pay for svc again. Tivo had made this offer once before for a series 1 to series 2 and in light of the current situation, they should be doing it again.

This is BS. I have had no data for weeks. I paid for lifetime svc and I should be receiving lifetime svc. There is a whole lotta people complaining over this issue and there pretty much is no repsponse on Tivo' behalf. As others have said I am sure there are alot of people who just thought that the hardware wen bad and said oh well. Actually I had thought the same thing. Before I chucked the thing in the trash I figured I would do a last min search. From what I have read & the time span this has gone on I would have to say that Tivo has breeched the offer/contract of lifetime svc. Can anyone say class action.